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Trump’s Transactional Approach to the Crises in Ukraine and Gaza: Expediency or New Conflict Mediation Diplomacy?
Atanasova, Martina
Atanasova, Martina
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Abstract
This thesis investigates why President Donald Trump’s revival of transactional diplomacy, defined as an approach centered on bargaining, leverage, and short-term gain, poses a challenge to the stability of the international order. To examine how this shift reshaped U.S. engagement in conflict mediation, the study conducts a qualitative content analysis of primary sources, including official speeches, policy documents, diplomatic records, and multilateral statements, and applies neoclassical realist and constructivist frameworks. Using Ukraine and Gaza as case studies, the research finds that Trump’s reliance on tariffs, foreign investment mechanisms, personalized negotiations, and envoy-driven deals subordinated multilateral institutions to bilateral pressure, weakening core legal norms embedded in the UN Charter, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, NATO’s Article 5, and the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The analysis shows that in both conflicts, transactionalism blurred the line between negotiation and coercion, conditioned aid and reconstruction on political concessions, marginalized local consent, and enabled the imposition of externally driven governance structures. These findings indicate that while transactional diplomacy offers speed, flexibility, and clear pursuit of national advantage, it simultaneously erodes legal predictability, destabilizes alliances, and accelerates a shift toward a fragmented international landscape in which economic leverage overrides collective norms. The thesis concludes that unless international institutions adapt to constrain coercive bargaining, the rule-based order risks further deterioration.
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Thesis (B.A. in International Affairs, Minor in Legal Studies)--John Cabot University, Fall 2025.
Date
2025
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Keywords
World politics, Foreign relations
Citation
Atanasova, Martina. "Trump’s Transactional Approach to the Crises in Ukraine and Gaza: Expediency or New Conflict Mediation Diplomacy?". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2025.